written by SarahHull on 25/03/2013
I, unfortunately, signed a 6 month contract with BE (Acocks Green) to sell my property, they lied from beginning to end about the price I could expect to receive, about the level of service they'd provide, about the timeframes I was looking at and about the marketing they would do on behalf of my property...after nearly 3 weeks my property still was not on their website and all I got was 'it's the admin centres fault', when it did go on the website the photos they'd taken made it look like a squat and they outright refused to use the photos my partner had taken (bearing in mind he's semi professional), this are only a couple of examples of a long line of errors. Finally the property sold - after doing my own negotiations to get the price up by £6k after they insisted I should accept the first offer! Then I was faced with their USELESS progression department who have outright lied again about where were at, what we are awaiting etc and continually tried to blame my solicitor for the other parties delays, everytime I chase them I keep getting excusses or my calls go unreturned.
I was then horrified to realise that my dream house was also on the market with Bairstow Eves (Redditch), deciding to give a new branch the benefit of the doubt I ploughed ahead and made an offer on the property. As my previous flat was leasehold I was adamant I would only buy a freehold property...Joe at BE assured me the property was freehold. 6 WEEKS later I am told by my solicitor the property is not freehold. The branch's answer? 'Well - we can't check everything the vendor tells us' so basically, it's your problem not ours!!
I will NEVER, EVER use this agency again and advise everyone I know that they should also steer clear!